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Are You Still Painting?

It’s interesting because this is the question you get asked most as an artist when you enter motherhood. “Are you still painting?” As in producing a physical object and being completely output-focused. Oh, and if not, you’re somehow no longer an artist to be taken seriously because you’ve completely abandoned yourself.

Images of women nursing in their studios or holding a baby in their arms while painting — because the art is just that important to be made. Grants for women artists who become mothers, but in the qualifications saying “your child must be under the age of 3 to apply.” Because even during that crazy time of the first three years that honestly feels a bit like drowning, you are supposed to prioritize your art in order to be a “true” artist. In those first three years, I was barely able to sleep or eat a meal, but I should be prioritizing painting in the studio to be taken seriously as an artist? Then, of course, when they are three, they are old enough for some sort of daycare or preschool so you can get back to your art and no longer need help because someone else can be with them.

I couldn’t relate to this feeling at all. Making art during motherhood felt like a selfish act when it was clear my daughter needed a lot from me and wouldn’t just sit there happily while I painted. We couldn’t even go out to a restaurant to eat for the first two years, and it took more than four years before she could sleep without waking up ten times a night screaming. Motherhood was a sink-or-swim situation, and something had to die to make it happen successfully.

There is this pressure that if you really value your art and are a “true” artist, you will find a way to physically produce your art no matter what. Is that really true? That being an artist or not is reduced to whether you are producing a physical object?

Fuck that!

I never stopped being an artist. I never stopped making art. I just stopped producing physical objects and spent a decade on inward reflection — living outside the production-focused matrix of life with my daughter — and I don’t regret a single moment.

So that question we all face when thinking about becoming a mother: “Can we really do it all?”

YES! But for some of us, it may not be all at the same time, and that doesn’t mean you are not an artist because you didn’t produce a physical object to look at.

The journey of motherhood is wild and rocky, and we are not all on the same path. In fact, we all have to find our own path and stop comparing ourselves, because the mom you see “doing it all” has help and support that you may not have.

The truth here is, no matter what choices you make, it feels crappy sometimes — like you are completely failing at life, failing your kids, or giving up on yourself. Juggling all the balls in the air at the same time may not be possible; some will fall, it gets messy, and in the process of pain from failure you learn to laugh it off, do what you can, and stop caring so much what others think.

I put this new me into my art now, as well as have compassion for all other women on this journey, even when our choices are different.